Online store reviews site TrustedCompany raises $1 million to expand to South Africa, Brazil

The founding team of TrustedCompany.

The authenticity of online reviews are almost impossible to guarantee. Malaysia- and Hong Kong-based online store reviews platform TrustedCompany, however, believes they’ve cracked the code. Today, they announced a successful series A fundraising round of US$1 million led by Tengelmann Ventures and co-invested by 500 Startups’ Khailee Ng as well as Asia Venture Group.

The funding will be used to accelerate their plans to expand into South Africa and Brazil, where TrustedCompany co-founder Frederik Krass claims that they have seen some initial traction after testing the waters. Already, they have clients such as Printi and HTS Latarias from Brazil, as well as CyberCellar and Click’n Compare from South Africa.

“Emerging e-commerce markets face a lack of transparency that creates distrust from online consumers. Customers are forced to purchase products and services without being able to judge the reliability, quality, legitimacy, and transaction security,” he says. Krass believes that they can bridge that “trust gap.”

To accomplish this, TrustedCompany acts as a third-party platform for anyone to submit reviews. It pays special attention to guarding against fake reviews, having developed an algorithm to root them out.

The company has achieved a measure of success in both Southeast Asia and India, where most of their clients come from. Their most notable customers include Lenskart in India, iMoney.my in Malaysia, and Pricearea in Indonesia. Krass says that the platform has seen a 40 percent month-on-month growth in terms of users, and almost 500,000 site profiles have been created since inception.

Having the backing of Khailee Ng will be a huge boon to their cause. “Amazon, Trip Advisor, Agoda, eBay, Yelp – some of the most prevalent internet companies of our time were built on providing reviews to online shoppers. TrustedCompany.com does this for the rest of the internet,” Ng said in a statement. “There’s nothing more exciting than seeing a team this capable go after a market opportunity this huge.”

See: Are online reviews trustworthy? Malaysia’s TrustedCompany believes so